Thursday, October 13, 2011

I'm tired of pressing Escape every time. I use laptop keyboard, so it is much easier to reach Alt than Escape.

Emacs supports mouse. This suits my (and many programmers') style of making small changes at many places within a document. I'd rather type with one hand and move around with the mouse. This is much faster than vi can do.

Emacs is a true real-time editor. Some versions of vi are not.

Emacs also support inline images. This makes editing (La)TeX documents easy to do.

Contrary to popular belief, metakey chords sometimes much easier to type. Commands such as C-x C-s C-x C-c can be typed effortlessly, especially on my Dvorak keyboard. HJKL are more difficult to remember on Dvorak layout, while W/w, E/e and B/b, they are not so ergonomic, right? Oh. You cannot rub out words quickly while typing. You can do them in Emacs.

There is no need to switch between modes. Switching between modes is not so easy in vi, and it can disturb typing rhythm having to press Escape key. Keys such as C-n or C-f (I map them to Super-n and Super-c) do not disturb typing rhythm. Plus you don't have to switch modes.

The features do not sit there for nothing. They are valuables especially for programmers, and they are real time-savers. You don't have to switch to Micro$oft Outlook to check your email, calendar, notes, etc. All out of the box. Also, I won't install more games in my computer, they are all in Emacs!

I am currently in preparation for the Asian Physics Olympiad. Along with other activities, they are the reason this is my first time posting in last two months. So don't expect me to post much within next few months. Thanks.